You will need a watertight seal which also entails a proper O-ring to accomodate whatever modfications you make. Unless you can work modding miracles on that block, cut your losses and buy a universal block and some copper heatsinks. Call it a day.

A stupid question:
do you have THICKER heat conduction pads for the back copper part?
If the R22 things are too high and the back copper part do not made contact with the voltage regulators, simple put a thicker pad on it.

What about the other parts that need cooling to?
Are these covered and cooled with the waterblock?

If all other parts are covered and cooled, and only the voltage regulators behind the R22 things are not covered and cooled, put a thicker pad on it.

Sorry for my English.
I have the same stupid problem with my new XFX card and EK Waterblock CSC Nickel.

You will need a watertight seal which also entails a proper O-ring to accomodate whatever modfications you make. Unless you can work modding miracles on that block, cut your losses and buy a universal block and some copper heatsinks. Call it a day.

Universal blocks? Ooo? I'm currently in this exact same situation, except I haven't purchased a block yet and I'm slightly new to the whole watercooling gig.

Does it require any abnormal tools to use a universal block and copper heatsinks?

Wow that all looks very foreign to me.
I see where that Copper plate should go though.

As far as getting all these peices, how much of a dent in my wallet will it make?

I currently have another 7970 coming in (I have 2, I'm selling one and I plan on watercooling the other) which is the reference model.

This new 7970 I can just buy the regular waterblock, but for my other "newer" card, I believe I will have to do all this tomfoolery with it.

Question: Does adding a waterblock to the card change the thickness of the card much? Does it make it noticeably thicker than with the original heatsink+fan on it?
I'm not tight on space, but still would like to know.

Wow that all looks very foreign to me.
I see where that Copper plate should go though.

As far as getting all these peices, how much of a dent in my wallet will it make?

I currently have another 7970 coming in (I have 2, I'm selling one and I plan on watercooling the other) which is the reference model.

This new 7970 I can just buy the regular waterblock, but for my other "newer" card, I believe I will have to do all this tomfoolery with it.

Question: Does adding a waterblock to the card change the thickness of the card much? Does it make it noticeably thicker than with the original heatsink+fan on it?
I'm not tight on space, but still would like to know.

Thanks a bunch guys!

Depends on the waterblock I guess. Everytime I've watercooled a GPU, it's turned a 2 slot card into a single slot card. So that means it got thinner. But looking at the waterblock above, that thing looks huge.